When it comes to the FIM Endurance World Championship, there’s one round that pushes teams and riders closer to their limits than anything else on the calendar – and that’s the 24 hour race at Le Mans!
This year’s race was even more hotly contested than every before with the return of Michelin to the paddock after a several year absence from the series, but it was Japanese tyre maker Bridgestone who took top honours alongside the FCC TSR Honda squad after a grueling day and night on track.
Thanks to the ever changing weather and track conditions, teams were constantly adjusting their race strategy to suit.
Fellow Bridgestone supported squad Yamaha Austria Racing started the race on pole, with Nicollo Canepa ending his rain hit initial stint in second after a poor start had seen him drop to seventh in the opening minutes. Marvin Fritz then grabbed the lead for YART and started to pull away from the chasing pack, but unfortunately Karel Hanika would come off at Garage Vert during his stint to push them back to 28th.
While YART eventually fought back to 4th place, the FCC TSR Team looked to control the race for much of the rest of the 24 hours aboard the new CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP, which was undertaking it’s first FIM EWC race.
It turned out to be a perfect race for Freddy Foray, Josh Hook and Mike Di Meglio who didn’t put a foot wrong once they regained the lead. At the end of the race they had completed an incredible 816 laps, taking maximum points for the race win, along 20 bonus points for leading at the 8 and 16 hour marks. The team last won at Le Mans two years earlier, and went on to win the series title.
The incredible result jumps FCC TSR Honda up to second in the FIM EWC standings and blows the championship wide open ahead of the season finale in Portugal on 26th September.
At the end of the race, team rider Josh Hook commented:
“It was an unbelievable race! We headed in this weekend with the new bike, the team had only few months to prepare it and we arrived here and got the job done. The new Honda Fireblade SP is amazing, straight out of the box it’s already competitive and surprised us all, riders and team, because we went faster on that bike than on any other bike directly. We kept on improving the bike and we arrived in Le Mans with a bike that was able to win the race, and we knew that from the start. A massive thank you to the team and our partners that worked so hard to get this new bike up and running. They deserve this victory and I’m happy that Freddy, Mike and myself were able to do it!”
